


Exit Through the Gift Shop

by Daks



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Descriptions of gore, Gratuitous Metaphor, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Updated to include a forgotten important paragraph, first fic hype, written as platonic but it can be read as otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25141576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daks/pseuds/Daks
Summary: Locus spent years on Chorus and all he got were these lousy souvenirs.
Relationships: Felix | Isaac Gates & Locus | Samuel Ortez, Felix | Isaac Gates/Locus | Samuel Ortez
Comments: 18
Kudos: 37





	Exit Through the Gift Shop

He would need a bag to take it all, really. Rocks of various elevation and the apparent interest of animals had made for a grotesque diorama of gray and orange and rot.

 _Or a bucket_ , his mind supplied nigh-immediately. Locus was never known for morbid wit. He turned, irrational and quick, to look behind him. It was senseless considering that the bulk of the voice's body was what he had just torn his eyes from.

He knew that Felix would always be a part of him. Felix was like mangled arm, untreated until the infection rendered it too dangerous to keep attached. Amputation was the only way, Locus told himself. He could not save the limb, but he had to save himself. As horrible the idea was the moment it percolated through his mind, Locus knew that losing Felix _was_ as crippling as losing an arm. A grim musing wondered if a phantom limb could extend to an entire person.

Locus would adapt, he had seen---and known---too many people lose their own various body parts in war do so than to spend even a moment on pondering the "if". "When" would be another question entirely. If the mental toil of working around a conspicuously partner-shaped hole in his blind spot took as long as any of its mental bedfellows, it would be a card shuffled through that particularly uncomfortable deck for the rest of his days.

Locus could not reasonably bury the body, nor did he have the time to collect it. The grenade blast had all but obliterated the left foot and the right had been dragged off by some opportunistic beast. So he let all of his soldier's automation handle the job of searching the main fixture of the wretched mangle for a dog tag. He didn't even know if Felix kept his, but as much as Felix refused to relive any part of the war, he had been a soldier as well. Your name was all the identity you had in a forgotten death among thousands.

Locus tugged at a small chain in one swift motion and broke it off. He made the calculated mistake of checking the name and suddenly the mass at his feet was human. Too much rode on those tags. For now, Locus was most grateful that the helmet, though caved in by a gratuitous amount, had not come off. A body was a human. He'd seen hundreds if not thousands of human bodies in his life and would probably see a hundred more. A face was...

Locus glanced back at the dog tag, expression null, as if it had eyes to observe him with. 

It took him a better part of ten minutes to find the remaining foot, which was a dangerous waste of time. But for as much as Felix could lay at the bottom of this cliff, for a Felix deserved no honorable burial, Locus knew the soldier did. The bounty hunter, Locus' right hand, _his partner_ did.

People could think and be correct about him being a monster. Inhuman as much as inhumane.

But Gates...then, _"Just Isaac"_ needed something. Perhaps it was selfish and unhealthy to keep the tags. He reasoned that it was simply wise to take them, as they could potentially lead back to Locus' own past. But Locus had convinced himself of enough lies already. Perhaps it was just as unwise to keep them near. But one was allowed to dull the pain of losing an arm. A tangible memory of the journey, a consolation prize. Something to put on the proverbial mantle next to all the bullets and shrapnel they had pulled out of each other in the last decade. Every time, Felix would make that stupid joke. Hands covered in blood, metal glinting between the hemostats. _"You can put this one up on the mantle with the rest"_. War novelties. So long, _thanks for the memories_.

Twice the weight pulled heavy over Locus' neck. He knew the danger of seeking out old outposts where he and Felix kept intel and possible links to their past or simply his future identity, but this was undoubtedly wise. With the Choreasans still reeling from their narrow victory, Locus was able to reach the abandoned outpost where he and Felix last stayed with no incident. He pulled info off and destroyed any and every piece of technology he found. He pointedly blanked his mind to search the meager bunk where Felix had the last rest he ever woke from. They hadn't been here in days but he could swear he could feel the human warmth on the sloppily discarded blankets through the barrier of his gloves. Even smell the sweat on them through the filters of his helmet. With a huff he flipped the flimsy mattress for good measure and Locus heard the near-alien flutter of paper as a thin pad slid out from beneath the pillow.

A book? An honest to god paper pad?

He supposed it was safer to keep some intel analog but it did not explain why it was hidden beneath Felix's pillow. He picked it up off the dusty concrete floor and turned it in his hands. It wasn't large, maybe the dimensions of a postcard at most. Cheaply bound at the top with a wrinkling at the spine suggesting poor handling or storage.

Absolutely nothing in the universe would've made Locus guess what lie between the pages. 

While Locus internalized the trauma of war, it was always readily obvious that Felix pushed it outward. Usually through violence, home-wrecking, and generally unhealthy, destructive ways.

But _art?_ Locus had no idea in so many years that Felix had even known how to draw. And they were not angry scribbles of frustrated boredom. They were beautiful. Some were clearly sketches of random items, now and then a scratchy view from the top of some tower. But mainly they were figures....in grotesque circumstance. The outward coping on the page was as heavy-handed as the line weight was. It was expression, physical and real. It was...tangible. Locus' hand instinctively went to the metal hanging at his chest. He had never known. And now he was painfully desperate to know.

He went through each page, stopping at what seemed like a study in self-portrait. His finger traced along a sketchy jaw, smudging it. Entropy filled in his immediate regret.

Felix was naturally left-handed, _sinister_ as the Latin word so carefully predicted, and it was something he complained about endlessly for as long as Locus knew him. Even long after he had become all but perfectly ambidextrous in fighting-style, he bemoaned whenever he had to write with something as pedestrian as a pen or pencil, as it smeared along the page. Another mess in the wake of a hand that holding a knife in had always gotten him further than the pen. Blood was more valuable than ink. The way this pad opened reflected that concern, and it showed. The only mar on the drawing now was by Locus' hand. Locus' own right hand. One he was still clumsily learning to use in wake of Felix's loss, one more suited for pulling triggers than moving across the fine tooth of paper.  
It occurred to him, then, that Locus had somehow been blind to the arm Felix had on his other side. The one that wasn't firmly entwined with his own, on the side that Locus was not able to see. For two bodies in constant orbit around the other in nigh-perfect synchronous rotation, Locus had never pondered about side he never saw. Felix had a left arm, after all. One he used out of Locus' reach his entire life. He pulled up the page and half-expected there to be another side to the portrait, but to no ironic pleasure, it was blank. At the very least it had tore him from the reverie.

The next page was perplexing. More figure-drawings, mainly busts and more refined portraits of a face Locus did not recognize. While Felix's self-portraits displayed an uncanny skill in rendering his own features, this face seemed to change. A broader nose or thinner face from one to the next, never committing fully on shape as if he were working from memory. It wasn't until a face near the bottom of the page bore a particular scar that something dropped from the center of Locus's head and plunged into his gut as he realized it was _himself_. His blood iced over so quickly that he swore he heard it cracking with the heartbeat pounding through his undersuit. Felix had been trying to draw Locus from memory. A face Felix once knew better than Locus did.

Locus couldn't remember the last time Felix saw his face. Locus couldn't remember the last time he saw his _own_ face. Apropos, a weight stabbed into his chest and lodged between his lungs. He never wished he could know something so badly.

In some ill attempt at self-flagellation, Locus slogged through the pages, trying to see that face in any of the forms. Trying to pick out the shapes and locations he might find a place in. But he couldn't settle the fury of yearning with noncommittal suggestions of himself.

Finally, he landed on a full-page drawing, disturbing as much as it was impressive. A mass of bodies, all twisted into a pile of corpses with a strong light throwing heavy shadow across them. Somehow no two appeared alike. Different features, sizes, skin tones, hair. At the top, in the strongest of the light, were two, thick, dark deliberate lines. It was such an unsettlingly abstract departure from the rest of the immaculately realistic drawing.

Felix was as subtle as a hand grenade in all aspects of life, and his art appeared no exception. Locus had an idea about the drawing. What it meant, what it was meant to be. But he didn't know. The intent. The expression. There were a few options. For the first time that day he was....relieved. Relieved to not know. Relieved to not want to know.

Felix was dead, Gates was dead, Isaac was dead. All Locus had were these mementos. Tangible parts of an identity. A body was a human, a face was a person....but a name and art by an unseen hand...those were him. And perhaps it was selfish and unwise to keep them close. But Locus justified to himself as he carefully stowed the paper pad to keep it safe from weather, that even if he had to cut loose the arm, he was still allowed to mourn a part of the potential he hadn't known it was ever capable of.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved the "Felix is an artist" headcanon. Mostly because I'm biased as an artist but also I could just see it. Maybe not so much like a fine artist here but even just someone who doodles. But you figure after so many years on Chorus with fuck all to do most days, he'd probably get pretty good at it.
> 
> Also sorry I don't know formatting or html. And to those who know me that my first fic is T-rated lmao. 
> 
> Let me know if there are any spelling/grammar errors! I tend to write how I talk/think so stuff gets muddled.
> 
> EDIT: I completely forgot I had the whole "Felix is left-handed and it was the whole thematic tie-in to the arm metaphor and the art oh my god.  
> Anyway yes, Felix uses his right hand to throw knives on Chorus BUT he completely whiffs a knife he *has* to throw with his left during Mercs and that's all the reason I need to say he was born a lefty.


End file.
